Desperate Times : TW Mix : Simple Twist Of Fate
by Ophelia Glace
Summary: I make an attempt to redeem the Desperate Times themes. Part 1 complete, moving on to part 2, there will be a brief intermission in which you may wish to strangle me, or yourself, depending on how badly you hated part 1.
1. Introduces & apologises

An Introduction to 'Desperate Times':

Character changes and concept.

Concept: This is a highly abstract idea, that was gifted me as I rested upon the bosom of wicked sleep. Rather, I had a bizarre thought while I was slipping off, one of those strange ideas that you can never remember how you came by. 

I ask you to understand that, though I have shifted some of the traditional ideas of responsibility, I am not attempting to absolve vampirism of its base evil. I assure you that while my sympathies do _not_ lie with Star and Michael, they do not lie with the film's villains either.

Also note that while there is a certain callousness to the role I have assigned Star, there _is_ a deep tragedy to it as well. She is the epitome of insecurity, and while she uses others easily, she is as easily used.

Character Alterations & Additions:

David: There is an abstract level of David which I have accessed here that many may not recognise.  Peace, please, I saw it, I thought it appropriate.  Also not the additions of a high level of literacy, and a deep affection for Laddie (as a sort of piecemeal excuse for his existence.)

Marko: The addition of the bar, as a source of comedy that amuses me, if it will no one else.

Paul: More of my illicit substance comedy, for which I apologise: the never-ending creation of pot-cigarettes.

Dwayne: I just cannot write for a character named Dwayne. I have dubbed him 'Danyel' for the duration of my fan fiction career.

Star: The difference in Star's character is the premise of the story, you will have to wait and read.

Laddie: His full name is "Lawrence" but no one will refer to him as such.

Michael: Hm, perhaps he comes out slightly more idiotic than he originally was. Or perhaps not, I'm not certain.

Sam: Is very decidedly gay. (There are several suggestions of this in the movie, for those whose eyes are open, though it's only an idea, not an opinion.)

The Frogs: Have been gifted with intelligence slightly above their normal (that is to say, beyond a fly.)

These are to be recognised as the most prominent alterations/additions that might be confusing.  Any further alterations/additions are thoroughly within the scope of the average fan fiction (accentuation of relationships, addition of families, histories, etc…) 

And now for the inevitable disclaimer:

All things here contained within the grasp of the movie The Lost Boys are far beyond my claim, and let me never be accused of having said otherwise.

Enjoy the show,

_Ophelia Glace_


	2. Wednesday morning at 5 o'clock as the da...

Star ran through the brief list of names one last time, and knew as she checked the last one off in her mind, that the time had come for her to leave. Her life in this place was over, and the frightening expanses of a continent's width stretched out before her. "California," she said the word to herself; the cloying sweet stench of disease mingled in her mouth with the salty tang of an ocean breeze and she wanted to retch. 

She was leaving home.

Her skirt swept cotton-feathery against her legs as she turned and left what had been her private sanctuary since mere days after her birth.  The heavy air of eighteen years flowed out after her, through the heavy wooden door which she left standing open.  Everything she would take with her fit in a backpack slung low over one denim-vested shoulder and a satchel which hung pendulously from the other.  And, if she hurried, she would not have to face her mother.

Standing still for a moment by the front door of the brownstone in which she had lived all her life, she realised she was terrified. She was an hour away from leaving New York, her home, and her family forever. That very day she would board a train to the west coast, to spend whatever was left of her life in exile. In her bag was a letter from her mother which had been written and delivered days ago; a gushing, insincere scrap of lies composed to make them both feel better. In her hands were the keys she would leave with her cousin at his job, since he would need them now. And in her blood the unstoppable virus was writing the record of her death.

She would wonder for a long while whether, had she not paused, she might have hung her head and slunk unnoticed past the brightly coloured woman rushing helter-skelter down the block.  But she had hesitated, and so she never had a chance.  The woman swept right up to her, clucking and shrieking like a mad hen, and instantly seized a flap of Star's thin cotton top between thumb and forefinger.

"This?"  She squawked, outraged.  "You go cross-country on a train with dozens and dozens of strangers and you were your underclothes?"  Star jerked backward, away from her mother, and those lacquered nails tore a tiny strip of cloth away.  

"Look, look at this!  It's all full of holes, Santa Maria, how did I end up with a girl like this?  A-"   Star could not stand there any longer, she could not hear this one more time; she should not have to.  She thrust her mother aside, wondering, in some distant corner of her mind how she could bring herself to touch her own mother with such violence. Shoving off with her back foot like a sprinter, she raced away from the door frame, and the angry shrieking.

She did not break down and cry, she did not pause for more than a brief moment, and she did not look back. The door shut behind her, as final as the slam of a coffin lid.


	3. Is this an angel's wish for man?

"Mr. Evans, your test results _are_ in, Doctor Moran will be out in a minute to talk to you."

Thomas Evans, poet, pot-head, and some-times student slumped into a plastic waiting-room chair. The cloud he had carried since Star's phone call settled about him, and whether it was that, or the dark look in his eyes that caused the woman he had sat next to shift away from him, he could not tell.

_'C'mon Tommy, what're you worrying about?'_

_'I-w-I…'_

_'Don't you trust me?'_

Damn the girl to hell and beyond. He chuckled nastily, wasn't she damned, though? Damned to the hell she'd bequeathed him? And God knew how many others… Slut.

It was one thing to take risks, but he liked to know what dice he was rolling…

_'Hell, Thom, okay. I swear, there is nothing you don't know about me…Now will you relax?"_

And she'd left him what, the next day? Day after? The woman was vile. Then, when she'd called… How he'd wanted never to hear her voice again but… When she called…

"Mr. Evans?"

He stood, he didn't know why, it just seemed appropriate. Dr. Moran was, as he remember, a little man, full of energy, who could not stand still without snapping his fingers or twitching his wrist, or fumbling with a pen. Normally, a broad smile lit his wide, mobile face, but now he was solemn, and held himself like a man…

_Like a man delivering a eulogy_, Thomas realised, _I have it_.

He didn't listen as Moran read off a list of meaningless condolences. He had it. He was dead. Maybe he could squeeze out a few years…but why? What good would it do him? Living a life of hospitals and drugs, knowing any moment he could fall prey to a common cold?

His footsteps echoed coldly on the linoleum lined stairs, as he dragged himself lifelessly up to his apartment. It was a sloppy little set of rooms, cluttered with papers and clothes and more papers. It was, he thought sadly, a perfect picture of his life. Right down to the single beaded earring taped to his fridge with the note 'mail to star'. 

He reached out and touched it, thoughtfully, setting it to swaying and jingling against the white plastic. The sound chimed deep within him, mournful, beautiful, lovely and cold. It was Star's sound, evoking memories of softly swishing skirts and thick-lashed, half-lidded eyes.

_'I love you.'_

He had hated her, for a single, passionate moment in that waiting room, but now he missed her again. Warm and soft and smelling of cotton and sandalwood and sweat. 

Hard and cold was the edge of the knife, and unkind the lines in the skin. Cuts, and deep ones, he smiled. The bloody wrists he held to his face smelled of women. And he'd only known one of those…

"Star…" 


	4. Home is where the hate lies

            Santa Carla was like an annual flower; every year, in the spring, it shot its little green sprouts up into the world, so that, come tourist season, it was in full, garish bloom.  And then, as slowly the freaks, the camera-toters, the roving ruffians, the vacationers started to drift away, the town's extremes began to droop.  Come winter, seventy-five percent of Santa Carla was abandoned.  The for-rent bungalows, the motels of varying class, the vacation houses, and the rows upon rows of restaurants, bars, stalls, stands and shops of all sorts were empty, abandoned, hideously dark and mockingly sad things.  Above and behind all, at the very foot of the ocean itself towered the still amusement park, like a gaudy, glowering monument left by some ancient circus-druids to befuddle the minds of later years.

           What was left living was a living replica of the town as it had been in the 1950's; a cluster of residential streets arranged about a tiny commercial center, consisting of a single theatre, a public library, a post office, butcher, dairy, bakery, and a "convenience market", which was a sort of proto-supermarket that staunchly refused to sell meat, milk, bread, or fresh produce (obtainable at the Saturday farmer's market).  Stretching out across the green lands surrounding was the last wave of population, the farms, whose produce was happily sold solely in Santa Carla.  It was the sort of community where everyone knew everyone else's name, and could probably venture a rather accurate guess at what their neighbours were doing at any given time.  Disappearances, missing persons reports, tiny charred bits of human remains, the "murder capital of the world", these were all summer things, and the natives were quite content to let summer people worry about them.  

********

            One native, in particular, took great pains to assure that grisly death was a summer problem in Santa Carla.  He stood now in the dark street, emptied for the dinner hour, holding his brown paper sack with an air of proprietary pride, and glancing occasionally at his watch.  After about ten minutes' waiting, he finally heard the distinct, even tapping of approaching heels.  "Late as usual," he sighed as the blacked swathed and booted blonde extended his hands for the bag, smiling slightly.

"Your rules, your problem."  The blonde's face wrinkled slightly as the bag was passed into his possession.  "'S'been chilled," he grunted, disdain oozing from him like some expensive and tasteless scent.

"I'm sorry, David, that I could not prevent the man from properly preserving his merchandise.  Perhaps next time you would prefer the actual cattle?"

"Perhaps we'd all be better off elsewhere."  The entire scene seemed well oiled, rehearsed, as if they had stood in that place and said those things a million times before.  And who is to say they had not.

"We've been over this, Santa Carla is our home."

"And if we go hungry at home, we should leave."

"Don't be dramatic, just because you *are* hungry doesn't mean you are *going* hungry.  Now take your animal parts, and your animal's urges and go back to your den."  David looked on the verge of throwing his parcel at the other and spitting in his face, but something about the man's set of face stopped the youth, and instead he turned on his spiked heel and stalked away.  Gazing with proprietary fondness at his retreating form, the man smiled and called out to him, "And behave yourselves!"  

He was rewarded with an excellent view of the backside of one of the boy's slender white fingers.


	5. And the storm blows up in her eyes

The metal was hot under her cheek, painfully so, it drew her slowly back to wakefulness. She had stretched out from her seat, to rest her head against the window sill, watch the landscapes of north eastern America flit by like primitive animation, running round a wheel: corn, cows, industry, forest, corn, cows, industry, forest. And out, away, into other dreams of geography. God, what a wide, wide country it was, and how long this trip was taking, and would take. She wished, fervently, that she was home.

She read perhaps a dozen paperback romances, pilfered from the gray-haired woman in the next berth.  In the cafeteria car she smiled blandly at the young men who flashed by, smiled at the tiny children escaping their mothers, smiled at the gray-haired woman from the next berth.  

And when it was all over, it felt as if she had blinked the days away, and there was still a hole in the pit of her stomach.  

**********  
  
There as a salt tang to the air as Star stepped off the bus in her mother's home town. The headiness of it turned her stomach, and brought bile up into the back of her throat. Around her, car doors were slamming as the few others who had disembarked with her met up with their rides, but, as she looked about, her aunt was not apparent. She sighed, unhappily.

The sun had set an hour or more ago and, though it was summer, the night was growing cool. Clouds had been gathering throughout the day, joining her own westward progress at about noon, when she had first boarded this bus after finally freeing herself of the cross-country train, and now obscured any light from the heavens. All was dark and foreboding in the already abandoned terminal. 

It was a tiny, filthy building, and its condition reminded her sharply that she was far from home. There, harsh fluorescent lights blinded the eyes to the litter of wrappers, drink containers, and tired human beings. Here the yellow bulbs buzzed slightly as they struggled to illuminate the trash and shadow of what was, for all intents and purposes, a glorified underpass.

A sudden, undeniable, and yet thoroughly embarrassing paranoia struck Star, and she shuddered. She was alone in this little hole of a place in the middle of nowhere. She had God only knew how long a wait before her and all the world about her was dark, unknown, and hostile. She slunk away from the curb, to put the solid wall of the terminal at her back, and stared about her again. She was alone, as far as she could tell, but her fear would not leave her. She hated it, violently. She was a dead woman already, what did she have to fear? What could harm her anyway, now? The thoughts were miserable, bitter, childish, but they set a burning, if unreal, sense of perspective. She wanted this unfriendly night to _try and hurt her now, she did not care._

"Come on," she laughed, madly, "come at me! Well, I'm-"she choked up, tears streamed madly down her face, and glistened in the headlights of the approaching car.


	6. A brief, drunken interlude

"Wait, wait, wait, guys, shut up, I think I'm buzzing!"

"You are not!"

"Lucky twat."

"Naw, false alarm.  Fuck."

The three sat in a small circle, passing a half-empty bottle, cursing frequently, and sounding absolutely desperate for something to distract them from their hunger.  Winter weighed on them visibly, there was grey under their natural pallor, they were thin, sluggish, warn.  All three were chain-smoking, none of them looked likely to survive the week.  He sighed and meandered over to them.

"Give it up, boys, you won't find your limit.  I've been trying."

"Oh yeah, guys, there's really no point in all this.  After all, if DAVID can't do it, no one can."

The three of them rolled their eyes, and Marco may or may not have flipped him the bird.  David shrugged and dropped into the place the boys opened for him in the circle, "Maybe you're right, pass it here."  

The liquor made another round, this time including the eldest.

"Whose selection?"

Paul raised his right hand, as his other snagged the bottle.

"You," and David shook a chiding finger at him, "suck.  Piss is stronger than this."

Snickers presided, and once again, David might or might not have been given the finger.

"Yeh," Marco started, and then paused to swallow, "from now on, I decide what we drink around here."

"You?  What the fuck do you know about it?"

"Well, first off, smartass, I can read.  Any idiot could tell this shit is useless.  Second, my dad was a bartender, I practically grew up fetching bottles."

"Nice."

"Then it's decided.  Marco, you're our drink man."

"Hey, man, I can read, just not proof."

"The man's right, you suck.  Any idiot can read proof.  College boy can read proof, and he chills stouts."

"Fuck you," Danyel responded, "I happen to drink like a civilized person."

"Civilized or not, you don't chill stouts."

"Shit, you're a bunch of snobs."

The three of them gave Paul the finger.  The whole group slowly slipped back into moody silence, as the search for their tolerance level, and blissful drunkenness, continued.  The winter wore on, and they perservered.


	7. The hero makes his lackadaisical entry

*Knock, knock, knock.*

"No."

*Knockknockknock*

He turned the stereo up, "No."

*Pathetic silence.*

            "Oh God damn it," he hauled himself to his feet, marched to the door, and yanked it open with exaggerated disgust.  "What?"

His brother shuffled bare feet, and hugged the bedding he was carrying, "I can hear 'em fighting from my room."

            'No,' he thought, 'I absolutely refuse to have sympathy.  I want to be alone.  I want to sleep.  I want not to be talked at all night.  It's his own damn fault he doesn't have a boom box.' But, of course, what he said was, "Put socks on, those stink-feet are not coming into my room."

            "You know," the elder grumbled watching his brother settle smugly on the floor, "you should have taken the damn radio."

"Aw, c'mon Mike, lay off.  It was the beginning of the school year, I-"

"No, I'm sorry Sam, there is no reason on Earth why you have to color coordinate your _underwear._"

            "Oh shut up."  Sam threw his pillow at his brother in mock-frustration, but it proved to be a self defeating move, as Michael proceeded to clobber him with the same pillow, and, while he was recovering, flick off the lights.  "Good night Sam."  

"Aw, c'mon, I can't find my blankets in the dark!"

"Good night, Sammy."

            He listened absently as his brother shuffled, grumbled, and sniffled his way into sleep, eventually, the cassette ended.  He stared at the ceiling, blinking in the dark, and listened to his brother's murmuring breath, his father's ranting, his mother's sobs.


	8. New York calls

Sixteenth, February, a month after her (somewhat surreal) arrival in this back-water Pacific town, and she had still managed successfully to avoid medical care, despite her aunt's practical, loving persistence. Actually, the warm acceptance of her father's sister had been depressing, and maddening, it violated her deep inner sanctuary of self-deprecation. If others accepted her, what right had she to be so disgusted with herself?

The sunlight did her good, though, and she loved that every morning she awake under a light sheet, in the warmth and the pleasantly heavy air, dusty with the house's age. On this particular morning, she stretched languorously, yawned with her whole mouth (and her jaw clicked satisfyingly), and, wrapped in a light robe, padded lazily downstairs towards the pleasant sounds of Aunt Maria and breakfast. "Good morning, _Estrella," and Star had to smile at Maria's persistent use of the Spanish, "breakfast will be done soon, you want a cup of coffee? How are you feeling?"_

Feeling? That meant another appointment set up at the hospital. Star sighed, "I'm alright, Maria. And you can call them and cancel it, I won't go."

Her aunt's face screwed up in frustration, an expression which Star recognised as only partly aimed at her, the rest was a doomed effort to construct over-long passages of English. Star went to the cupboard and pulled out a mug as she waited for her Maria's lecture.

"Estrella, va al hospital, usted tiene que ir al hospital, usted es enferma. Muy enfermo, y hay la gente que le ama. Usted tiene que tomar el cuidado de se, o me deja tomar el cuidado de usted. Please?" Her niece's mane of frizzed curls tossed as she shook her head, "No, I don't want to get worked up over the inevitable. I'm gonna let this go."

Maria snorted, "Everybody's death is inevitable. You get old, or sick, or into some accident or war or whatever. You need to preserve the life, push back what has to happen. Especially when the life in question is so young." Star knew, as she said these next words, that they were unfair. Why should she use this cruel bit of bullshit against the woman who loved her better than any other person in the world. But her lips seemed to move of their own accord, and she quoted, in harsh, deadpan voice.

"Such a young life, to be defiled like that."

"And those are her words, aren't they?" 

Maria went flush with annoyance, old grievances stirred. She had never really approved of Star's mother, though she had developed a personal affection for her. 'You can like someone without liking how they treat other people," she had always said. Now, as she looked at her niece, young, bright, beautiful, sunken in despair and self-loathing, willing to let herself die rather than learn to live with herself, an angry love moved deep in Maria's breast. 

"Why do you let her say that crap to you? Why do you let it into your head? Your mother is no holy blessed virgin, you know. She had Louise five months after she married my brother and-"  
"It isn't about mama."   
"The Hell it isn't Este! You let her tell you how to breathe and eat and think about yourself so much, you got yourself into this to get away from the life she giv-"  
"You don't know! How would you know? It's my life!"

Now Star was angry, it was her life, it always had been: her mistakes, her hatreds and stupidities. And so she left her Aunt sitting there, and didn't say another word as she left the house. She raced out, sandals slapping the concrete, and she turned toward the sea- and the board walk. In winter, Santa Carla was a small town, and the people she passed smiled at her. They knew her, even if she did not know them. (She's a Hernandez, of the in-town Hernandez's, old Louisa's granddaughter. The girls of that family always DID carry on a bit, you remember... Anyway, she's the baby the oldest son had way out east, in New York, or some place like that. I hear she's sick or something, she's living with Maria and John now, Lord, what was her name? Estrella? No, no it was the English, Star. No wonder she's so over the top, such a name!) She ran on towards the shore - hoping. 

***************

For what? For it to magically become the Atlantic? To some how, fantastically, be home? Stupid.   
The sun was setting over the ocean; the beach was flushed red and fiery orange with its colour. Behind her the board walk nestled low to the sand, and no one was hocking hotdogs; the smell of roasted nuts was conspicuously absent. Besides, it was December, she ought to have felt the icy winds blowing from the north and east, cutting through her thin jacket, freezing even the marrow of her bones.   
She fingered the crumpled five-dollar bill in her pocket, reflecting bitterly on the quality of pizza in Santa Carla, and the nonexistence of the bagel shops.


	9. A simple twist of fate

There would come a day every winter, near the end, when it would become too much, even for a veteran of hunger.  Had he been alone, as he had been in years before, he would have locked himself away.  It was not a matter of restraint, of keeping law or following orders, it was a matter of pride; stubborn, juvenile pride, but pride nonetheless.  Anything his elder could do, he could do also, but now… Now here these three were, and to them, there was no matter of pride, no need to vindicate self image after long years of being treated as a fool and a child, no, there was only hunger, and a stupid bloody rule that kept them hungry.  

And the breaking point drew nearer, he could feel it.  Tension grew in them as in a guitar string, tuned ever sharper, waiting to snap back and leave stinging welts on the hand that turned the knob.  The lair reeked of saddle-soap and weed long since smoked, tempers rose, voices cracked, the deliveries grew more frequent.  David's shoes had never been cleaner, and his hands were stained black with polish, February drew on.

As usual, it started when he woke up with a headache; he squeezed his eyes shut, bit his lip, and fell to the floor with an impressive symphony of flutters and thump.  His eyes, he was sure, were slowly oozing out between his lids, and pooling with the slime of brain that had leaked out of his ears during the day.  It was the sort of headache usually induced by several hours' working with cleaning fluids, while small children jumped up and down on your forehead.  It was the kind of headache which made one think longingly of migraines, the kind of headache that waited, patiently, gathering strength at the base of your skull for weeks before erupting in full-force to make your life generally miserable for days.  And then he realised that he hadn't actually woken up yet, and that when he hit the floor in a moment or two, it would all be ten times worse.

'Maybe', he thought wistfully as his eyes opened, 'I'll just sleep till June.'  And then he hit the ground with a groan; the night had come.  He struggled to lift himself up; even crawling would have more dignity than lying there, waiting for the craving to sweep him up.  His heart beat behind his eyes, slowly, pointedly, throbbing with the pain…or the pain ebbed between heartbeats, whichever.  Dimly, through the haze of headache and the growling emptiness in his gut, he realised he was being talked at.  Sneakers, sneakers were… Marco?  Yeh, sneakers were Marco, shut up sneakers.  If there were to be any shutting up, he knew, he must somehow verbalize the injunction; he strained to make his lips move to produce once-familiar sounds, and managed little more than a growl filled with half-linguistic murmurs.

"You okay, man?  You-uh, slept pretty late…"  He had slept late?  He had _slept _late?  Marco's level of perception (or lack-there-of) was astounding.  He would have liked to comment but he was, demonstrably non-verbal.  He wasn't sure which annoyed him more, the idiocy or his inability to mock.  

"Okay, you officially look like shit," David rolled his eyes desperately, save him from his friends, someone!  He reached out, with an effort, and seizing hold of Marco's ankle, squeezed for all the pain was worth.  The other gave an indignant yelp of pain, and tried to shake him off, but he just dug his nails in, snarling.  

"Shit, man!  What the hell?"

***

            She could not bring herself to leave the ragged skeletons of the summer town, something powerful, some silent recognition of how deeply and truly she belonged there held her.  She was thinking about Thom, about his new book, and about his "untimely death" as the Times' reviewer had put it.  Thomas Evans was dead.  She had killed a man.  

"You forgive me, Tommy?  I know you would, too.  Stupid son of a bitch, waited till the book was done.  Always practical, right?  No use killing yourself so close to the end."  She moaned softly, Thom Evans was dead, and he had sent her an advance copy.

'To a star, who enjoyed playing the Cosmic Trickster, a _man_'s love _unkind not.'_

What a dedication, what a Cummings-fixated asshole Thomas Evans was, to the very end.  

"The dedication, the last piece of the collection written, was in fact left with instructions to his publisher in Evans' suicide note.  Those friends and family members who were willing to comment could shed no light on its meaning.  This is highly unfortunate, as the dedication is, perhaps, the most worthwhile piece in the entire collection.  Once again Evans has managed to compile a book full of maudlin love songs and winterish malingering, which he fails to save with a unique, appealing style, leaving one with a distinct feeling of sorrow and longing.  If only Evans had been properly medicated, one thinks sadly, not only would he be alive today, but I might have enjoyed his writing."

She watched the water sadly from the heights she had climbed, and thought no more of Thomas Evans, but only of herself, and of the uncomfortable disease she had bequeathed upon more than one man, though only Thom would have said it so.  God damn it, why would the boy not leave her alone?  He was dead, dead, dead, and she had other things to be guilty about now.  It was not fair, he had killed himself, he had forfeited the right to blame her for his death, she had no reason to feel so guilty.  He had-

Could she?  Look how high she had climbed to see the ocean.  If she hit the ground from here, she _would _die, but had she the will, did she dare?  Maria's heart would break, and look how much she still owed her aunt and uncle…  But look at the ground down there, and think of Tommy.  Tommy hadn't the guts of a gnat, but he had used that knife, "surgically", he had made it look expert, when he had left this all on her.  Fuck you, Thomas Evans, and fuck your poetry, and fuck how you loved her, and fuck what she'd done.  Maybe she'd fly away, instead, fly to Lon-  no, this was the Pacific, she'd fly to Tokyo, if anywhere.

Maybe she'd just, slip up, climbing in a skirt was so dangerously stupid.  Maybe she'd trip and fall…  But it would look like she'd jumped anyway, so why bother?  Why try that tiny lie that no one would hear anyway?

***  
  
            He was walking, hands pressed tight against his diaphragm, he breathed evenly.  'I will win,' he promised himself, he promised his smugly grinning starvation, he promised his self righteous son-of-a-bitch guardian.  'I always win.'  The night was cool, for southern California, and spring, still more than a month away, promised itself about the edges of the scenery.  His head hurt, and his heart beat loudly in his ears, stranglingly in his throat.


End file.
